As a practicing Catholic, I am exceedingly proud of the Church’s involvement in protecting the poor and the helpless–including the unborn–and influencing Congress and other legislative bodies to enact policy in favor of such protection. Unfortunately, in recent weeks the Catholic Church has been under much scrutiny. Liberals have attacked it for its key role in passing the Stupak abortion amendment (see one crackpot theory here) and for allegedly putting its opposition to gay marriage ahead of helping the poor and needy in Washington, D.C. Since both of these positions are aligned with the betterment of American society and with Church doctrine, some of the critics apparently require some education on why the Church is so involved in these matters.

First, regarding abortion. The crackpot theory I reference above is just one of the many opinions critiquing the Church’s push for pro-life policies in health care reform. These critics seem to forget that if health care reform is about saving lives (as Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) apparently believes) then the Church’s position is superbly pro-health care reform, no questions asked. Saving lives is saving lives, even though some Democrats and liberals only seem to value those lives if they can receive welfare or pay taxes.

Additionally, critics of the Church forget that, according to USCCB.org: “615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community hospitals in the United States, and over 15.5% of all U.S. hospital admissions. In addition to hospitals, the Catholic health care network also includes 404 health care centers and 1,509 specialized homes.63 In 20 states, Catholic health care facilities account for more than 20% of admissions.64 Catholic hospitals employ over 598,934 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs).65 In 2005, there were more than 15.4 million emergency room visits and more than 86 million outpatient visits in Catholic hospitals. 66 In 2005, the number of Catholic residential homes for children, or orphanages, totaled 235, serving a total of 50,264 young people.” Clearly, health care reform would greatly affect Catholic services to millions of Americans. Why shouldn’t the Church have a say in health care policies? Unions make up only a bit over seven percent of private sector workers and yet receive much attention and lavish legislative support at the hands of Democrats.

Lastly, critical Democrats forget another important fact: the Church was crucial to their victorious passage of the House health care bill and will play a similarly key role for the Senate. To defeat the Church’s efforts is to defeat health care reform. Period.

The gay marriage debate/public services between the Church and the D.C. City Council is perhaps even thornier than the Church’s involvement in health care reform. In short, D.C. is trying to pass same-sex marriage laws and has a domestic partnership statute that forces organizations that receive money from the city to give equal domestic benefits to both heterosexual and homosexual partners. The Church, naturally, is opposed to this, since its basic beliefs hold that homosexual relationships are immoral. The city is threatening to ban the Church from receiving contracts to provide services to some 68,000 city residents.

I first learned about this issue from the front page Washington Post article on November 12, 2009. The article, unfortunately, framed the issue as the Church issuing an ultimatum to the city, as did a CNN piece I saw last week. This framing is a complete falsehood. As Jonetta Barras wrote in The Washington Examiner on November 16, the Church is merely holding to its faith. After all, permitting the D.C. same-sex marriage laws to be upheld would bar the Church from receiving city money to help the poor, since the Church tenets would be at odds with those of the government. As a friend put it, it is the city that is putting the pressure on the Church, not the other way around.

I have no problem with the city deciding to disallow the Church from contracting to provide services if it violates city law. While I disagree with gay marriage and feel the city is harming its citizens through this policy, laws are laws and should generally be upheld until changed. That’s not the issue. The issue is that the city has decided to create an environment where falsehoods, not facts, rule the day. While the Church takes responsibility for $18 to $20 million of city money annually in D.C., it also throws in $10 million from its own coffers. That is $30 million dollars being put into the city by an organization that, according to Barras, “…is a well-managed operation.” This is not about the Church pushing its beliefs on the city, but about the city deciding to ideologically allow gay marriage at the expense of its citizens.

In short, if the city decides to uphold domestic partnership laws and allow same-sex marriage, the Catholic Church will be forced to diminish its services severely. The cost-benefit analysis of this should be the real debate, not seeing how much false blame can be foisted on the Church for holding fast to its beliefs.

In both of the above situations, the Catholic Church is getting shafted for doing what it has always done when helping people: holding to its principles. It is a practical reality that the Church helps millions of Americans every year by providing health care, shelters and adoption services. As such, I find it surprising that liberals, who should thank the Church for supporting health care reform, health care for illegal immigrants and other “liberal” policies, reject the Church’s public service because it has certain tenets. Meanwhile conservatives, who by and large are against the current health care reform bills in Congress and oppose health care for illegal immigrants, recognize the true good the Church is doing and are willing to support even the Church’s efforts they don’t agree with (including by supporting the Stupak Amendment in the House, which guaranteed passage of the Democratic bill) in order to help their brothers and sisters.